Laura Kinsale by The Dream Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

mind with Lady Hester in his contempt for the weaker sex. Only as long as she was a Bedu boy in his eyes did she feel any hope that he would tolerate her, or extend the shield of his protection. He would cast off a girl instantly, most probably into the custody of the nearest village governor, who would send her to the pasha if he did not marry her to the first man, Christian or Mohammedan, who would pay him for her. She might escape to the north, if she could walk so far, limping and begging for food, without being killed or enslaved. In the desert a poor stranger would meet with hospitality, for a few days at least, but here where rebellion and Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers had tortured the land for so long, there was no such certainty. And if she did by God’s mercy reach her old tribe the Nasr, she would only be where she dreaded to be, sunk again in the brutal misery of desert life, with no faintest hope of England.
    But Lord Winter—Lord Winter could send her to London if he pleased. Consuls would bow to him, showering golden sovereigns as he willed. Ships would arrive at the bidding of an English lord—she had seen it happen; her own mother had often commanded such things in the days of her power, before all her money was gone and the debts heaped up.
    “You are a strange child,” he said thoughtfully. “I suppose it is no wonder. A Bedouin who hates the desert and speaks English superbly—I cannot imagine what your mistress contemplated for you.”
    “M’lady never spoke of that, or made provision,” Zenia said, with complete truthfulness.
    “Did she wish you to go to England?”
    “It is I who wish to go,” she said firmly. “M’lady is dead, may Allah give her peace.”
    “Very true,” Lord Winter said, amused. “By which I take you to mean that she didn’t intend you to set foot there.” He stood up, shouldering the rifle. “Well, I have no such scruples, little wolf. If you long to see England, then, ay billah, you shall go. After you conduct me to Riyadh and Hayil and back again as my rafik.”
    Zenia stared up at him. She had never been to the Nejd, to the very heart of the Arabian peninsula—all of her years with the Bedu had been spent in the hot plains north and east of Damascus. El-Nasr’s small fendi of the great Anezy tribe had never had reason or will to traverse the red nefud sands to the south. No one Zenia knew had even joined the hajj to go to Mecca. The southern desert was like a fabled land to them, the place of their ancestors; Riyadh the domain now of the puritanical Wahhabi princes, who would take back the world for el-Islam by arms, who hated any infidels but despised Christians most of all, who had even cut out the tongues of simple Moslemin for singing, because their exacting sheiks said innocent song might tempt the devil. Such were the stories she had heard of the land beyond the sands of the red nefud.
    “Excellency,” she said carefully, “if you will send me to England, I will do anything, but I must see the money first.”
    “Oh ho, must you? Go and look your fill then, but unless you can get to Damascus and back within the quarter hour, you will find the bargain off.”
    Zenia wet her lips and lowered her eyes. He gave a chuckle at her discomfiture.
    “Quite the cunning desperado,” he murmured. “I don’t carry bags full of coins for young ruffians to plunder. Two sovereigns now, cub, on your oath that you will not desert me without leave, and your passage to London arranged on our return.” A sudden thought struck him, and a wicked grin lit his face. “By God, I’ll take you there myself. We’ll have tea at Swanmere with my lady mother, and be appallingly respectable.”
    Zenia lifted her eyes in wonder. “Would your lady mother receive me?”
    “I don’t doubt she’d receive the devil himself, if that’s what it took to get me back in her clutches.” He came down off the boulder with an easy stride and offered his hand. “What say you, wolf cub?